It was the last night of October, the rain had stopped earlier in the evening, and Church Street was closed between Gloucester and Wood streets. It was ‘Halloween on Church’, an annual street party filled with costumes on display wanting to be seen and other people wanting to see and take pictures. These photos represent only a small selection of what there was to be seen that night (obviously!).

below: A one night stand to remember

below: Glowing red and green

below: Japanese ghouls, dressed to kill?

below: White man on keyboard.

below: A group of people went as the 3D Toronto sign.

below: More playing with lights, this time as stick people.

below: Looking at instagram in a new light, from a different point of view.

below: With a doll and a lit candle

below: With a doll and a dog.

below: This one is for Jude, something about wanting to take this one home with her…..

This is a “Thursday door” post. If you are interested in doors and want to see other people’s blog posts about doors, start with Norm 2.0’s blog post. At the the bottom of that post you will find a link to many more!

This year’s Nuit Blanche was on September 28th and 29th. The night’s activities were spread over a large number of locations around the city. That was a few days ago so yes, I am a bit behind. I was laid low for a couple of days with this cold that’s been going around… or I took a few days to recover from being up until 3:30 a.m.!

below: Part of ‘Continuum: Pushing Towards the Light’ by Brandy Leary and the Anandam Dancetheatre. They made they way across the glass enclosed bridge over Queen Street between the Eaton Centre and The Bay store.

below: More from the same installation, this time from the “right” side. It was great for making shadow figures. Thanks to Jude for starting off the evening with me… and getting creative (silly?) too.

below: We found a photo shoot on Bay Street.

below: On Bloor Street, nothing to do with Nuit Blanche but it looked cool. Reflections and lights.

below: Eaton Centre, a quieter moment that night.

below: Checking the map. Yonge Dundas Square – the installation there was very unimpressive so I took people pics instead.

below: At Church of the Redeemer (Avenue Road and Bloor), Korean Dancers. “Star Moon Water Stone” by Ensemble Jeng Yi

below: Drummers, same venue as above.

below: ‘This Storm is You’ at the Ontario Science Centre, an installation by Zahra Saleki. Photography on the walls and stories on the floor.

below: Walk among the stories. “Every story deserves to be lit. Grab a sharpie and write yours.”

below: Smile!.. and a testament to the start of love. Two of many lit stories.

below: Saleki’s photos displayed here are abstract dance photographs in black and white. Negative images and slowing the camera to produce the blur of motion.

below: This is what you saw when you first got off the subway (is the SRT a subway?) at Scarborough Town Centre. It’s part of the ‘The Things They Carried’ Babel series. The motifs are similar to those on the installation at Yonge -Dundas Square, that oops, I don’t have a picture of.

below: At Scarborough Civic Centre, ‘Everything I Wanted to Tell You’ by Hiba Abdallah. A series of words in lights projected onto several buildings. The words changed every few seconds to tell a story or two.

below: More of the words. “People hold on so tightly to a specific narrative of this place”.

below: More projections at Scarborough Civic Centre. Sorry, not sure which installation this is.

below: Scarborough Town Centre (mall) had a mountain of inflatable globes you could walk under, or just look at. ‘Walk Among Worlds’ by Maximo Gonzalez

below: Weaving stories, ‘Interlacing’ by Community Arts Guild, at Scarborough Town Centre.

Open Streets – the second, and final, Open Streets for 2018 was held last Sunday. Large sections of Bloor and Yonge Streets downtown were closed to traffic leaving lots of room for cyclists, pedestrians and a number of activities.

below: Axe Capoeira

below: Mayada’s Belly Dance at Yonge & Bloor

below: And other dancing in the street too – or rather, a very active fitness session!

below: It looks like animals can dance too… this dog seems to be having a great time!

below: Little drummer boy on a fancy Home Depot drum set!

below: Decorating bikes and scooters

below: Sharing a hammock in the middle of Yonge Street.

below: Trumpet lessons

below: Yoga in the park

below: And for those who were looking for something less active…

below: Yonge Street was also on the route of the 2018 Toronto AIDS walk

below: IATSE Local 58 led the parade this year. They have been locked out of the CNE who brought in workers from Quebec and Alberta to help set up the Ex this year. Usually the parade ends at the CNE grounds at the Dufferin Gate and participants get free admission to the Ex. This year, the parade ended at Lamport Stadium instead.

below: Mayoral candidate, Jennifer Keesmaat, walked in the parade with the IATSE locals. At Bathurst St., the groups at the front slowed down to let the others catch up. At that point, Keesmaat was interviewed by CP24.